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Poetry Notes

Notes to accompany the poem Cinnamon Answers

“These are my answers in cinnamon”
Because the ‘answers’ (aka poems) are not always happy nevertheless they are my response (answer) to a situation.

“lemon…and Mancunian honey”
Honey is eluding to Volume 2 – Sweet. In contrast lemon is referring to Volume 1 – Spice, so OK lemon is sour and not spicy, but both are savoury and acquired tastes. [If that’s not enough I challenge you to the Cinnamon Challenge; for those who haven’t attempted this I will tell you that Cinnamon – that benign spice that you put in tea or in confectionary – burns!] Also lemon and honey together make a traditional medicine to sooth the throat, and hopefully both volumes of Cinnamon Answers also work together, to idealistically make crappy life events and emotions seem less problematic and hindering. In my opinion, only Volume 2 has any positive themes, but it’s through the comparison of the volumes that gives rise to this: this is how negative, morbid and unproductive thoughts can be (Spice) on the other hand I could take a grounded productive approach to life and think like this (Sweet).

“Such tree bark of cinnamon”
The herb Cinnamon comes from tree bark.

“Crushed upon nouns, words and verbs/And adjectives not like any other herbs”
…what can I say, I like to personify grammatical categories – see there’s a first for everything! I got this idea from the poem “Name” by Carol Ann Duffy which I fell in love with the first read. Listen and read it here.

“From melancholy to passion”
Volume 1 to Volume 2

“Held in total ambiversion”
A personality that is equally introverted and extroverted.

“Where emotion is my enhancer”
Without emotion how could anyone write poetry?